She sees, reads and writes. It feels okay.

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things that are dangerous. things that are great.

Downtown in Missoula, Montana yesterday, a real live Native American approached me on the sidewalk. Picture the red, ruddy face, as you would expect, then add a shitload of scratches, bruises and gashes held together with medical tape. He asked what kind of money I could spare. My god, are you kidding? The spending kind.

“Got in a car wreck yesterday,” he said. “This keeps happening to me. My daughter is always asking how I get myself all banged up all the time.” He said it jovially, like, “Oh, I’m such a klutz!” The world can be such a horror show, you know? So many unsafe edges and surfaces to smash your face against if you’re not careful. Even if you are careful.

If you went back to my blog entries from fall of 2009, you’d find my first impressions of Missoula: There’s no sales tax, the ducks and crows, for lack of hands hold feathers, a river runs through it, and so on. The place looks and feels made up. All of that is still true, so there’s no point in repeating it.

Here are some before, during and after photos of the elephant in Utero my brother put on me in boston.

Here’s another example of a thing that is dangerous. I asked the heavens/facebook for a bike to use for the summer. Somebody I never met but who knows me through my newspaper writing went ahead and loaned me his bike. He had a broken leg from falling off of said bike but the helmet saved his head and it’s fine. I’ll be fine. He made me promise I’d wear his haunted helmet, and I agreed, warily, warily, warily, warily, and no need to finish the thought.

Your apartment is great, I said. The song you’ve been working on in your diminished condition is great. Your many guitars and broken leg is great.

The hills are great. The pink clouds creeping over the hills are great. Except for the low hanging chandelier directly under the couch I’m currently surfing that I will never remember not to hit my head on again and again, I can’t think of anything that isn’t great.

Small Book

The world was dull or annoying to him, and she was just like any other female, he felt: she had certain functions. And he had seen those functions turned inside out by high explosives, he knew what was inside people, and there was nothing there. It was gross. It was boring. It was sickening and that was all.
From Preparation For the Next Life, by Atticus Lish